Back on the Saddle After a Serious Case of Post-Race Slump

I’ve been putting off writing my June blog post for lack of a very exciting story, but here goes:

My last post back in May was about my personal success in a race. Since then, I’ve learned a few things.

Late May is a GREAT time in my schedule for me to have a goal ride. Plenty of time in the months prior to ride in basement and outdoors.
I should really schedule another bike goal/race later in the summer to help avoid the post-race slump I was in for much of the end of May/early June!

After achieving my May race goal, I purposely took some time off from training to catch up on the things I had been ignoring – all the “life” stuff that I had to ignore sometimes to justify long workouts.

Turns out that my intentional time off turned into a few weeks of very little biking before I realized it. At first I wasn’t concerned with losing fitness – I had gotten into (for me) pretty great biking shape. I didn’t have anything on the horizon that would require that amount of fitness.

Then when I realized I REALLY needed to get back on the bike, I talked myself out of it because I really didn’t want to know how far out of shape I had gotten! Such a mental game! So there went a few more days of potential training!

Finally, I knew that if I intended to ride the Newington Bike Women’s “A” ride on July 1st and be able to get a few decent rides on the Ironman Lake Placid bike course mid-July while there to cheer on my husband, I had better get “back on the saddle”.

Still not willing to test myself on the road for fear of having a totally demoralizing ride, I headed back to the basement to suffer in private. After a few days of some tough workouts on my trainer, I ventured outside. Since then I’ve logged a bunch of miles, retrained on some hills and am feeling pretty good. Definitely not back up to pre-race shape, but lesson learned, I’ll get there again soon.

My husband asked if I was leading the “A” ride on Saturday . . . HA! I told him this time I may be struggling just to hold on to the back of the line. But, that’s OK!! Hope to see some of you tomorrow morning. And if you’re spectating or volunteering at IM Lake Placid in July, I’d love to hook up for a ride or two!

So, not as exciting a post as my Co-Ambassadors who are killing it in their events this month, but a life story of a post-race slump overcome!